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In the last few years I've interviewed over 200 entrepreneurs. One of those against whom I would not bet is Bill Seibel.

In a July 15 interview with mobile strategy consultant, Mobiquity founder and CEO, Seibel, framed his career as that of a hero overcoming long odds to grow a big business from scratch.

Seibel, a Pittsburgh native who earned a BS from Penn State and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon, found himself in Europe trying to build up the business of Cambridge Technology Partners, a client-server systems consulting firm.

As he explained, "We had a joint venture with Getronics -- based in the Netherlands. I was in Europe and had to make the JV work. So I started cold calling and making pitches in what was a foreign language to those prospects."

But things worked out well. According to Seibel, "We ended up with outposts in nine countries, generating $100 million in revenue with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of 16%. Then I came back to the U.S. and became COO -- running nine of 12 business units."

Seibel's next stop was Internet consulting -- a story with a less than happy ending. He raised $100 million in venture capital from GCTR and built Zefer into a blue-chip customer heavy Internet consulting powerhouse with $132 million in revenue in 18 months. "It was fireworks on a foggy night. We priced our IPO the day before the NASDAQ crashed [in March 2000]. Of 68 Internet consulting firms -- only two survived. We were bought by NEC," explained Seibel.

After selling his next start-up, forecasting software provider, Demantra -- which he built to 140 customers -- to Oracle in 2006 for $41 million, Seibel was "spending time with his family. I saw that the kitchen utensils were a mess so I designed and built an organizer that I thought my wife would appreciate. A houseguest made a remark that stung -- 'This is what retirement looks like!'"

Seibel was not ready to retire and saw an opportunity in helping big companies develop mobile business strategies. He had previously built similar companies around client-server and Internet technologies and concluded that mobile was the next wave.

Mobiquity got started with a few talented people and an opportunity to bid for a huge consulting project with a global financial services firm. Seibel explained, "A project manager at a large bank in New York was looking for help on a huge project. Forrester Research had recommended 35 firms and she was determined to talk to all of them."

Seibel got Mobiquity into the bidding and ultimately won. "I met with her and described our value proposition -- to help companies think of mobile as part of their overall business strategy, rather than an add-on," said Seibel. "She asked me what the name of the company was. I told her we had no name and no company but I would get back to her. Six weeks after our presentation, we were one of the final seven. And after the next round, she called and told us we had won -- a $6 million contract that started the next day."

But at this point, the Mobiquity story took a surprising twist. "She told us we won because we had the best people and the best value proposition. But I told her she needed to find another firm because I was afraid that the job was too big for us to do well. Most of my team resigned but I was able to raise money and build the company," Seibel said.

And Mobiqity has been growing fast. According to Seibel, "We have 150 clients and have boosted revenues. In 2011 revenues were $5 million, in 2012 they rose to $18 million and so far in 2013 we are up to $24 million with a $40 million backlog and nine offices. We have 200 people, expect to end the quarter with 350 and the year with 400."

Mobiquity has assembled a strong team tapping a growing opportunity. "Mobile is expected to reach 35% of IT budgets by 2015. And we supply a team with the technical skills they need. Of our 18 top executives, 14 were CEOs before and they have skills in key areas like mobile, security, cloud, social, and business strategy. We can do large, complex transformation projects for clients."

Will Mobiquity be another big win for Bill Seibel? Investors NewSpring Capital, Longworth Venture Partners, and Sigma Partners have bet a total of $17 million that the answer is yes. If it hits at least $100 million in revenue, a Mobiquity IPO could happen, so could an acquisition by Oracle or IBM.